So, i'm looking at the 4 piece, and am adequately unimpressed (as I was during ICC where the 4 piece was a near identical carbon copy only tied to Divine Plea instead of Divine Protection). In fact, i'd wager to say that the 10% Divine Plea implementation from ICC days was a better implementation than the current version is it is directly tied to being activated AFTER divine protection wears off, which makes it even less reliable, and sort of a "besides the point" bonus. Personally, i'm using divine protection for the up front damage mitigation, be it physical + magic, or as a straight up heavy magic damage CD.

Now, even if we used divine protection on cooldown, which we typically don't, 12% parry over 10 seconds, once per minute only really gives you, on average, 2% avoidance over the entire duration of a fight.

Comparing that to the comparable options.

The Tier helm and shoulders have threat stats, and there are options that have 2 survivability stats on them. As well, there is a non-tier chest piece that provides mastery/dodge instead of the tier's dodge/parry combination.

What my overall question is, what are the other tanks thinking in this regard? Are you still going straight for 4 piece tier 12, or are you actively looking at the offset pieces that could potentially provide better overall damage mitigation than the 3 tier pieces in question?

I agree with you for the most part, but i believe the tier shoulders are a tad better due to the nearly 200+ mastery on it, but then again the rag shoulders may actually be better since we will be hitting the block cap fairly easily with firelands loot, will have to test it out, for now though I'll be going for legs/hands/shoulder tier and will end up buying the chest piece sooner or later

The rag shoulders got changed to dodge/hit instead of being dodge/mastery. That said it probably pushes tier shoulders into bis given the natural mastery on them compared to the other 2 shoulder options.

Caeles wrote:What my overall question is, what are the other tanks thinking in this regard? Are you still going straight for 4 piece tier 12, or are you actively looking at the offset pieces that could potentially provide better overall damage mitigation than the 3 tier pieces in question?

You also need to consider the added benefit of being able to use a better itemized piece of gear if you aren't going for 4 piece.

So for instance, let's say you decide to use the rag shoulders because they are higher ilvl, and better itemized than the tier shoulders, and if you have to take a threat stat, you'd take expertise over hit because it's the superior stat.

Caeles wrote:You also need to consider the added benefit of being able to use a better itemized piece of gear if you aren't going for 4 piece.

So for instance, let's say you decide to use the rag shoulders because they are higher ilvl, and better itemized than the tier shoulders, and if you have to take a threat stat, you'd take expertise over hit because it's the superior stat.

Well, one factor for me is that this early on I like to see DPS and healing get their tier pieces. I just try to grab whatever tank drops come my way, and then use JP for the first couple tier pieces. I usually start filling in my Tier pieces once all the locks and priests have a couple.

So on that aspect, it actually makes my gearing choices easier......which is to take what I get. Gear still seems less important for tanks than it's ever been. If the 4 piece bonus was the extra duration on Guardian, I'd probably try to get them sooner. 12% parry or whatever the bonus is while nice, I'm not sure of a fight where it's as important as that extra few seconds on GoAK (I recall it being a huge boon on Cho'gall)

Well if block capped it provides a very strong cd coverage time for 2/3 the time without touching out 3 minute CD's. HS>DP>4piece>HS>repeat. That said does anyone know if you can block caped (or almost) with 4 piece set bonus is the bigger question?

Using the TB trinket and the mastery trinket from the spider, im so close to beeing block capped its like 3-4 gems to actually reach it iirc.Getting block capped in t12 will be very possible.Block capping in t11 raids wasnt really that important, as it stands now in t12, its a lot more attractive, not only thanks to the new holy shield, but also due to the fights in general (they are pretty easy aswell tho)

Yeah right now using a combination of 359/372/378 gear im block caped was just wondering if it was fully possible to do it with 372+ gear and have the 4 set bonus. If so the main appeal of the 4 piece would be to keep the same physical damage reduction uptime while having a magic reduction cd. (HS+DP glyphed>4 set then TB trinket+HS so 30/60 second of physical damage reduction) I'm not sure of a fight where you would need to use a magic damage reduction on cd all the time in tier 12 right now except maleroc fight. BTW anyone find it interesting that askmrrobot is defaulting normal T12 4 piece with tier shoulder/chest/hands/legs and heroic T12 as helm/chest/hands/legs?

Arincia wrote:I'm not sure of a fight where you would need to use a magic damage reduction on cd all the time in tier 12 right now except maleroc fight.

I'm going to type this here and then make a section for it on the talent and glyphs section but glyph of divine protection should almost always be in unless you are progressing on a physical damage fight. The only being shannox in tier 12.

Bethilac-( You could debate this) Better if you can time it correctly for the fire. You can't block the fire damage you can block all that physical damage though. You can use it just to save healers mana every time she is doing her lava spray. Um when you go up there ( I haven't been up there yet) but she does do a fire pulse. Once you've tanked a fight so many times you know exactly when a boss is going to do something.

Baleroc- OP for fire swords and then imagine having 4 piece ( which i more than likely wont)

Ryolith- Fire damage after armor melts. High stacks during bad volcanos and a stomp is coming. tanking the big fire pulsing add?

Alysrazor( Fire bird if i spelled that wrong)- Every time she is on the ground after the burn out she deals MASSIVE fire damage to the raid including you

MajorDomo Staghelm- Burning Scythe? 250,000 fire damage split among 10 ppl. You could literally take stacks at the end with just glyph of divine protection ( I mean I wouldn't advise it) but either way it helps your healers out because we let our melee sit behind him still. So its 250,000 divided by 8. Why not do what you can to reduce the damage even more. Debateable if full raid is alive the pure 20 percent damage reduction vs the 40 percent yes. However if a couple raid members drop and there is only say 7-6 ppl in front of him and at higher stacks of fury? I think glyphed DP becomes much better.

Ragnaros- PRICELESS

In ADDITION : IF USING 4 PIECE

You can use your divine protection for the magic protection and then cancel it off after the big damaging thing to get your 12 percent parry. That is only a logical assumption btw.

Alysrazor: You wont glyph Divine Protection on Alysrazor Heroic. The Hatchlings are dealing badass physical Damage, most of Magic Damage is avoidable and Alysrazor did gimpy Fire damage in her Burnphase.Even on Nonheroic i wont glyph DP.

Majordomo:Majordomo is a Singletank Encounter. Even infact of Flamescythe Damage DP is a good Cooldown for his Kittyphase, which is the "heylooktankisgonnadie"-phase.

Beth'tilacBeth'tilac hits me for around 100-180k Blocked Hits. Physial DP is a lifesaver.

Baleroc- OP for fire swords and then imagine having 4 piece ( which i more than likely wont

Are we talking about normal or heroic mode? Decimation Blade can not be resisted or mitigated and the Inferno Blade hits me for ~250k damage on heroic and his melee attacks are hitting me for ~220k (Average about the whole fight logged by WOL). We should prefer the unglyphed Divine Protection and use a second CD for the Inferno Blades.

Alysrazor( Fire bird if i spelled that wrong)- Every time she is on the ground after the burn out she deals MASSIVE fire damage to the raid including you

Same opinion as Vlesk. Hatchlings Berserk is in normal mode tankable without physical dmg reduction but in heroic its impossible with T11/T12 gear.

Ragnaros- PRICELESS

Maybe thats a personal problem but i am taking more damage from physical damage than from the fire debuffs. Maybe because im using the Broken Mirror trinket and because of the taunt from the second Tank when i reach the third stack (He taunts -> Im idling around only taking damage from the debuffs -> Most of it gets absorbed by our discipline priest or form my own Word of Glory). Has someone information about the heroic version? We still have problems with steady Baleroc trys.

Indeed, Balerocs Inferno Blade hits for nuts compared to his melee attacks. We did Baleroc Heroic today and i took the glyph out to prevent more damage.His normal Melees hit harder AND faster + he is duel wielding when not in a blade-phase.

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead a little but I have been looking through the BiS list and wondered the same question that has been asked here. I have read this thread and can't see a definitive answer.

Could you get more overall avoidance from the offspec pieces than the 4set bonus give's?

inthedrops wrote:Well, one factor for me is that this early on I like to see DPS and healing get their tier pieces. I just try to grab whatever tank drops come my way, and then use JP for the first couple tier pieces. I usually start filling in my Tier pieces once all the locks and priests have a couple.

So on that aspect, it actually makes my gearing choices easier......which is to take what I get. Gear still seems less important for tanks than it's ever been. If the 4 piece bonus was the extra duration on Guardian, I'd probably try to get them sooner. 12% parry or whatever the bonus is while nice, I'm not sure of a fight where it's as important as that extra few seconds on GoAK (I recall it being a huge boon on Cho'gall)

This,I will let the dps/healer get the tier pieces first and then I will probably go for it. I am currently trying to be ctc capped without 2 mastery trinket and using 1 stam trinket instead.It seems to me that it is a lot harder to go for ctc cap buffed with the 4 set bonus,unless you get every single upgrade from normal mode.So since my guild didn't start heroic yet, I will go for ctc cap without the 4 set bonus and will only give a try to the 4 set bonus once I get a few upgrade from heroic mode. Would probably be easier for me if I had blacksmithing instead of enchanting but I will manage without it. So I am going without the set bonus for a while pretty much.

I got the baleroc helm, aswell as raggy shoulders and my good old trusty t11 heroic chest - I also have a full t12 tank set.I can easily hit block cap, even with just a single mastery trinket, but I'd like an overall answer as it puzzles me a bit

Well we aren't killing raggy on hc anytime soon so Im using the helm as offset piece just because that is the only option.

If i could use preference though I would go with the chest as offset piece. Because that comes out best with my ctc/stamina ratio. Im using silk and scales so overcapping isnt an issue for me. I prefer tier shoulders regardless because the high mastery lets me gem more stamina.